From the author of

From the author of

9. Dumb Deleting

Several small things bug me about the way Mac OS X deletes files. If you have
ever selected a lot of items and then pressed Command-Delete to move them to the
Trash, you’ve no doubt encountered the progress dialog box that appears
for several seconds while Mac OS X prepares to move the files to the Trash (see
Figure 5). Why isn’t this action instantaneous, at least from the
user’s point of view? Sure, the operating system must update its directory
of the files’ locations, but this could be handled in the background, no?
Likewise, why expose to the user the amount of time it takes to actually empty
the Trash? From the user’s perspective, emptying the Trash should occur
immediately, whether it contains one file or thousands.

Figure 5 The many
frustrating dialog boxes related to the Trash indicate a problem with its
implementation.

It also bothers me that if the Trash is being emptied, you can’t open
it or add more items to it. If Mac OS X were truly helpful, it would honor the
user’s desire to delete additional items, not insist that they try again
later.

The final injustice occurs when you are trying to empty the Trash and a
dialog box notifies you that "the operation cannot be completed because the
item is in use." Fair enough; I don’t expect Mac OS X to allow me to
delete a file that’s actually being used by another application, but is it
too much to expect to be told the name of the application or thread that’s
laying claim to the document?